Desktop productivity applications (hereinafter referred to as “productivity applications”) have transformed the way people draft documents, build spreadsheets, create presentations, and perform a variety of other personal and business-related tasks. In particular, productivity applications enable users to generate high-quality work product in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Examples of productivity applications include word processing applications, spreadsheet applications, presentation applications, and the like. Also, groups of productivity applications are commonly sold as bundles. Examples of such bundles include OFFICE from MICROSOFT CORPORATION and LOTUS SMARTSUITE from INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES INC.
If a user wants to access a productivity application on a given computer, the user conventionally locally installs the productivity application on the computer. If the user wants to access the productivity application on another computer, then the user will need to locally install the productivity application on the other computer. This results in a number of potential drawbacks. In one example, if the user owns multiple computers, the user may need to install the productivity application on every computer. This may cause problems if some of the computers do not have the processing capability to execute the productivity application or the disk space to store the productivity application. Installing multiple copies also adds significant expense.
In another example, if the user borrows a computer from a colleague, the user has access the productivity application on the computer only if the colleague has installed the productivity application. If the colleague has not installed the productivity application, the user may purchase and install another copy of the productivity application. However, this option is not ideal because it adds substantial expense, especially if the computer is borrowed for only a short time. Further, the colleague may not want the productivity application installed on her computer.
In yet another example, the user has no access to her own computer (e.g., the user is on a vacation), so the user relies on a publicly-accessible computer, such as those commonly found in libraries and Internet cafes. In many publicly-accessible computers, installation of new software is prohibited, sometimes even prevented through software applications, firewalls, and other security measures. Thus, if a publicly-accessible computer does not contain the productivity application, the user may effectively have no way of accessing the productivity application.
When a software-based productivity application is not installed on a given computer or is otherwise not available on the computer, a user may access a web-based productivity application over the Internet or other suitable network. The web-based productivity application may enable the user to create and edit various documents, thereby providing at least some of the same features as the software-based productivity application. Further, the web-based productivity application may be accessed via a standard web browser.
One feature commonly found in software-based productivity applications is the capability to search an external library or other suitable collection for a multimedia file and insert the multimedia file into a document being edited by the web-based productivity application. A number of approaches for implementing this functionality have been developed but are considered to be suboptimal. In a first approach, the user manually downloads the multimedia file from the external library and stores the multimedia file locally. The user then manually uploads the multimedia file from a local storage device into the web-based productivity application for insertion into the document. Among other problems, this approach is not suitable on publicly-accessible computers and other computers that do not allow the download and storage of files.
In a second approach, the user installs an ACTIVEX control or other web browser control on the web browser. The ACTIVEX control may be configured to aid in the retrieval of the multimedia file from the external library. Some web browsers, firewalls, and other security measure limit or block the installation of web browser controls, such as ACTIVEX controls, in order to prevent the installation of potentially malicious code. In a third approach, the user manually enters into the web-based productivity application a URL corresponding to the multimedia file. In this way, the web-based productivity application can directly download the multimedia file from the external library and insert the multimedia file into the document. Requiring the user to be aware of the URLs for every multimedia file and to manually insert the URLs into the web-based productivity application passes a substantial amount of work to the user and creates a poor user experience.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.